PhD students
Raúl Bahamonde Soria graduated as a chemist at the Central University of Ecuador (UCE-Ecuador). Later, he obtained a master degree in Chemical Sciences at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (México), where he discovered the potential of microbial fuel cells (MFC). He started his research on renewable energies at the UCE in order to investigate and propose new MFCs with recycled and low cost materials. Currently, he is performing his doctoral studies at the Université catholique de Louvain (Belgium) under the supervision of Prof. Patricia Luis, aiming at the development of new hybrid systems for the decontamination of textile wastewater, coupling the MFC's with membrane filtration systems and photocatalytic reactors (advanced oxidation processes).
Mar Garcia was graduated as mechanical engineer at the National Polytechnic Institute (Mexico). She worked for two years at the oil and gas industry where she became aware of the environmental effects of activities based on the use of fossil fuel. Then she decided to continue her career in an environmental subject and she was awarded with a scholarship from the National Council of Science and Technology of Mexico (CONACYT) to study a Master degree in Environmental Sciences and Management at the Université catholique de Louvain (Belgium). During her master program she gain interest towards specific subjects such as climate change, environmental pollution and remediation solutions. Therefore, she decided to start her doctoral studies under the supervision of Prof. Patricia Luis at UCL. The overall objective of the PhD is the capture of CO2 from flue gases using membrane technology and bio-enzymes as catalysts by mimicking nature to convert CO2 into valuable chemicals.
Wenqi Li completed his master studies in the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven holding a degree in Materials Engineering and in Chemical Engineering. He developed his research and engineering skills through internships and academic studies. During his master studies, he gained knowledge on membrane processes and wrote a research paper based on the work of his master thesis, with the cooperation of his supervisor (prof. Patricia Luis) and promoter (prof. Bart Van der Bruggen). He was also involved as co-author in a second paper on the development of environmental friendly ink for spray coating of organic photovoltaics, which has been published in the Journal of Advanced Functional Materials. Mr. Li strongly feels that membrane processes and membrane technology are very useful in industrial processes in the present and the future. Thus, after completing his master studies, he started his PhD within the research group led by prof. Patricia Luis at the Université catholique de Louvain. The main objective of the research work is the separation of organic-organic mixtures by using pervaporation in order to achieve a high purity product and a low energy consumption process.
Raphael Jannsens was graduated as a chemical engineer in 2015 at the Université catholique de Louvain (Belgium). Between his bachelor and master program he spent 12 months travelling on the other side of the globe witnessing the devastating impacts of human activities on various ecosystems: barrier reef, mining on aboriginal lands, seabed pollution related to mass tourism, stress on endangered species, etc. This experience motivated Raphael to carry on his academical education with a master program in sustainable chemical engineering. In 2015 he decided to begin a PhD thesis under the supervision of Prof. Patricia Luis from UCL and in collaboration with Prof. Joao Crespo from iBET (Portugal) and Prof. Mrinal Mandal NITD (India). The aim of the PhD project is to develop an advanced oxidation process able to degrade pharmaceutical compounds used in cancer treatments. The system under study in the UCL laboratories is a photocatalytic membrane reactor in which pollutants encountered in Belgian, Portuguese and Indian hospital wastewaters will be spiked. Additionally to degradation route and toxicological studies, the impact of powering the treatment plant by different renewable energies will be assessed thanks to a life cycle assessment analysis.
Israel Ruiz Salmón graduated as Chemical Engineer in 2013 and did a Master Degree in Chemical Engineering “Sustainable Consumption and Production” in 2014, at the University of Cantabria (Spain). Since 1st October 2014, he started his PhD in Science and Technology under the supervision of Patricia Luis at the Université catholique de Louvain (Belgium). The main objective of the thesis is to develop an integrated strategy combining several membrane-based technologies in order to capture CO2 from flue gases from combustion processes. Besides, this scenario also includes the use of membrane distillation/crystallization to obtain a product (i.e.,salts) that can be reused in the industry as raw material (e.g.,ceramic and cement industry). Laboratory work is combined with modelling and simulation from a technical, economic and environmental point of view.
Senior scientists, Postdoctoral researchers
Naïma Sallem-Idrissi holds a PhD in Materials Sciences from the University of Lille 1 in France in 2008, in collaboration with l’Ecole des Mines de Douai. The theme of her works was to establish the relationships between the mechanical behavior, structural and macromolecular orientation of multilayer films composed of Polyamide 6 and Polyethylene for the food packaging industry. Then, she worked as research assistant at the BSMA institute at UCL on Walloon Region projects concerning reactive extrusion, polymer nanocomposites, polymer from biomass waste. She is now working on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and studying the environmental impacts of recycling the plastics from residual waste and will be involved in forthcoming project on bio-composites.